September 05, 2025
by Alex Geraki Trimi The case of Almukhlas and Al-Maliki v. Greece concerned the interception of a yacht carrying 94 migrants near the Greek island of Symi by members of the Greek Coast Guard and Frontex (under the Joint operation Poseidon) that resulted in the killing of a child of Iraqi nationality, Ameer, by the […]
September 02, 2025
By Jerome Joseph The case of Vyacheslavova and others v. Ukraine stems from an incident of civil unrest which occurred in Odesa on 2 May 2014 and which claimed 48 lives. Released in March 2025, the case appears to have escaped the same level of academic attention which followed Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia […]
July 30, 2025
by Ana Radina On 6 May 2025, the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) delivered a judgment in the case of L.F. and Others v. Italy that concerns adverse effects of long-term exposure to environmental pollution in the Salerno municipality (Campania region). Flexible application of the precautionary principle resulted in the Court’s finding of […]
July 16, 2025
by dr Angela Hefti Introduction In Switzerland, every two weeks a woman is killed, and women experience disproportionately high levels of domestic violence. Femi(ni)cide is not only a Latin American problem, although the term gained prominence in relation to the disappearance, rape and murders of women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Femicide is a systemic issue […]
June 03, 2025
by Gunay Ismayilova Introduction On 6 March 2025, the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter, the Court) delivered its judgment in Hasani v. Sweden, addressing the State’s positive obligations under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights to protect individuals when the risk to a person derives from self-harm. Although the Court ultimately […]
May 06, 2025
By Dr. Alice Dejean de la Bâtie Can the lethal use of an explosive grenade by law enforcement during a protest ever be justified? This question is at the heart of Fraisse et al. v. France (27 February 2025, nos. 22525/21 and 47626/21), a case brought before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) following […]
April 18, 2025
Grażyna Baranowska Marie-Bénédicte Dembour Isabel Kienzle This post, an output of the DISSECT project, is concomitantly being published on the DISSECT blog Regularly operated at many borders of CoE member states, pushbacks are problematic practices from a human rights perspective. They generally violate the principle of non-refoulement under Article 3 ECHR as well as, most […]
April 02, 2025
Violetta Sefkow-Werner The recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) in the case Cannavacciuolo and Others v. Italy of 30 January 2025 concerns a large-scale pollution phenomenon in the Italian Campania region caused by decades-long illegal and uncontrolled waste disposal by private actors and sustained by the government’s systematic […]
March 11, 2025
Corina Heri On 20 January 2025, the ECtHR issued a Chamber judgment in Cannavacciuolo and Others v. Italy. This environmental pollution case concerns an area known colloquially as the Terra dei Fuochi (“Land of Fires”) because it is notoriously plagued by the illegal dumping, burying and burning of waste on private land. This decades-long practice, […]
January 31, 2025
By Dr. Sibel Yılmaz Coşkun In its judgment Vieru v. the Republic of Moldova (19 November, 2024), the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Moldova violated, among other rights, its substantive obligations under Article 3 ECHR by failing to provide adequate legal protection to T. and take effective measures against prolonged domestic abuse. However, […]
December 20, 2024
by Vladislava Stoyanova Introduction Validity Foundation on behalf of T.J. v Hungary raises some important questions about the standard of causation in the human rights law reasoning. This blog post does not aim to challenge the conclusion in the judgment that in fact appears very reasonable. This post is rather a continuation of my reflections […]
June 14, 2024
By Jef Seghers On 9 April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, the Court) issued its long-awaited Grand Chamber judgments in three climate litigation cases. This post is about the most comprehensive of the three judgments – and the only one in which the complaint was not ruled inadmissible: the one in the […]
February 20, 2024
By Dr. Türkan Ertuna Lagrand Introduction Fifteen years after Opuz v. Turkey, Türkiye is once more the source for a groundbreaking judgment of a European court focusing on domestic violence. In its judgment of 16 January 2024 in WS (C-621/21), the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has established some long-awaited crucial interpretations to […]
March 17, 2023
Christopher Roberts Machalikashvili and Others v. Georgia concerned the killing of T.M. by members of the Counter-Terrorism Department of the State Security Service (‘SSS’) of Georgia on 26 December 2017. The precise circumstances in which this killing took place, as well as the integrity and comprehensiveness of the investigation subsequently conducted into the killing, were […]
September 07, 2022
Spyridoula (Sissy) Katsoni Reports on deadly pushbacks at European borders have become so frequent by now that they hardly seem shocking. Yet, even the toughest of hearts cannot but be affected when reading the facts behind the Safi and Others v. Greece judgment, released by the European Court of Human Rights (Court/ECtHR) on the 7th […]
August 02, 2022
My intention is to explore the reasons for the judgment in Gribben v. United Kingdom (Application no. 28864/18). I want to provide context to the judicial decisions through an exploration of prior case law and the mechanisms of law which were used to come to these decisions. Case facts Gribben v. UK, centres around the […]
June 21, 2022
By Christos Tsevas In the case M.A.M. v. Switzerland, the ECtHR concluded that there would be a violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR if the applicant were returned to Pakistan in the absence of a thorough and rigorous ex nunc assessment by the Swiss authorities of the general situation of Christian converts […]
January 14, 2022
By Joyce de Coninck MH and Others v. Croatia concerns the return of a family of 14 Afghan individuals from Croatia to Serbia, which resulted in the death of 6-year-old Madina Hussiny. This case is yet another in a rich line of recent cases relating to the rise of institutionalized pushbacks at the external territorial […]
December 28, 2021
By Sjoerd Lopik Today marks the second anniversary of the Urgenda climate ruling of the Supreme Court (Hoge Raad) of the Netherlands (a translation of the ruling can be accessed here). With its ruling, the Supreme Court finalised the first case in which a national court issued a specific order to a government to reduce […]
November 02, 2021
By Joseph Finnerty The Chamber’s Carter v. Russia judgment indicates a revolution for the Court’s approach to the extraterritorial application of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). Its publication suggests a turn away from its, to put it diplomatically, conservative case law on the subject. Its innovation also extends to its approach to attribution […]